Well, that didn’t last long. HP’s Upline, a backup service that offered unlimited storage for $59/year, is closing its doors. Since launching last April, Upline has faced issues with extended downtimes – a pretty major offense for a backup solution. But it’s likely the ultimate reason for the shutdown is that Upline was never really able to get much traction in a crowded space with very little in the way of differentiation. That said, there’s clearly money to be made in online storage, as evidenced by Hitachi’s recent acquisition of storage and backup solution Fabrik this week and EMC’s $76 million acquisition of Mozy in 2007.
Below is the letter sent to HP Upline users, who will have until March 31 to download their files. In a classy move, it looks like HP is going to refund all fees customers have previously paid for the service.
Thank you for your interest in HP Upline.
HP continually evaluates product lines and has decided to discontinue the HP Upline service on March 31, 2009.
HP will no longer be backing up your files to the HP Upline servers as of Feb 26, 2009 at 8 am Pacific time. HP will keep the file restore feature of the Upline service operational through March 31, 2009 Pacific time in order for you to download any files you have backed up to Upline.
If you have a paid subscription to HP Upline, you will be refunded the full amount of the fees you paid for the service. That refund will be credited to the credit card account or PayPal account that you used to subscribe to the Upline service. If you do not receive the refund prior to March 31, 2009, please contact our customer service team at https://www.upline.com/support/email.aspx.
HP looks forward to offering you additional technology products and services in the future.
Thank you.
HP Upline team
HP Upline has been added to the Deadpool.
Great post…be sure to visit my site at http://macmaniapodcast.com.
No, fuck you and your shitty site.
I’m sorry, i didn’t find anything shitty about my site.
I did, everything.
may i ask what?
apparently your perception is way off—we have thousands of visitors a month
I feel sorry for them
wow nice job! it only took your tiny ignorant brain 45 minutes to come up with that comeback!
oh, and i’d like to see a better and more popular blog come out of you
Disregard that I suck cocks
Wow, I can’t believe that you’ve stooped that low as to make a comment under my name because your moronic “brain,” as I use the term loosely, cannot function enough to admit that you yourself, my friend, are the cocksucker.
We welcome everyone at http://www.dattabank.com.ar, our Site has been since 2006.
We are the first online Backup solution for Latinoamerica based on Argentina.
if (downtime <= uptime)
upline = fail
Nice catch..
oops >
doh!
Classy move? Hardly! At $59 per year, and few customers, this is not much of a sacrifice on the part of HP.
What’s particularly low-class about HP’s move is their notification of the shutdown mere minutes before the 08:00 PT cessation of backups. What were they thinking?
I’ve had high regard for HP for decades and will continue to buy their hardware rather than that of their competitors. Today’s move, though, takes a small bite out of my high regard for HP.
Dell offers free offline storage with each PC you buy from them.
I have never bothered to use it on any of my Dells, I can see why a program for $59 a year fails.
Great new service at http://www.exsafe.net, not just backup of content, but collaboration of documents and spreadsheets between desktop/laptop and Blackberry
Backblaze (www.backblaze) welcomes all Upline users to backup all their data online for just $5 per month. TechCrunch reviewed the service and said it was “online backup with Time Machine finesse”.
To help with the transition, we’re giving 20% off for people switching. Use the coupon code “upline2backblaze” until March 31st.
59 a year. no thanks. i’d rather us zumo
http://tr.im/gOUl
Maybe I don’t really understand the product but unlimited storage for $59/year sounds like a great deal. I know with our startup, storage is one of our greatest input cost, you just can’t have enough of it these days. Could someone elaborate on their business model?
I just read everyone’s comments so I understand their model. Those anyone do a similar product like this for enterprises?
HP Upline started shutting down shortly after they opened I think by not allowing users outside the US to signup. There are a number of services already starting to offer specials for HP Upline users. Backblaze was mentioned above. I have also read and blogged that Mozy and PutPlace are also offering specials for HP Upline users. Even if you were not an Upline user you could take advantage of some savings at the other services.
http://www.getdropbox.com offers a better service which is free for most users.
DropBox is one of this year’s TechCrunch 50 — recognized for the quality of its service which not only does file backup, but also sharing and synch among multiple computers, users and operating systems
Free?
from their support:
“The basic dropbox account is a free 2GB account. You can upgrade to a 50GB version for $9.99/Month or $99/year, and there is a 100GB version for $19.99/Month or $199/Year. We do not have an unlimited plan.”
Read getdropbox terms of use. The data you put on getdropbox belongs to them too. They can use whatever you have on getdropbox.
Getdropbox uses amazon EC2. I don’t trust amazon with my data. They will sell them.
Ben Fryxell …. take a cooler laddie… the other bloke was right….. Your website is shitty….
I never used Upline and I dont see the fun of backing up stuff online, because even with high speed broadband it takes hours and days to upload and download stuff…..
I prefer a limited backup service, where you pay little for an annual backup plan of say 20Gb (like mine)…. I use DELL DATASAFE ONLINE
What’s your problem with it?
Like Backblaze, Mozy is also looking to pick up the former Upline users, by offering 20% off their 1- or 2-year signups: http://www.onli...mozy-upline.php
BackupReview has done a review of upline and rated it as 1 star out of 5.
Here is the friendfeed page:
http://friendfe...om/onlinebackup
A few heads will roll at HP over that waste of time, energy and money….
Free Unlimited is the wrong pricing model.
As people feel they pay too much because they pay also for the unused part.
Read: http://bit.ly/1TVKeU The Worst business model.
Check out http://www.MyOtherDrive.com for online backup, file sharing, and collaboration.
http://altdrive.com is a great service that provides secure managed backups on multiple computers for a low cost. Give it a try. It does incrementals too.
Hi Jason,
I work for http://www.nomadesk.com, which offers easy and secure file sharing, wherever you are. I read your post on Upline with great interest and just wanted to add NomaDesk to the mix.
NomaDesk, trusted by mobile (“nomadic”) businesses for several years now both in Europe and the U.S., focuses on secure file sharing with max. uptime. Therefore, NomaDesk includes an encrypted virtual drive that keeps your files securely available off-line and remote file shredding and IP-tracking with TheftGuard. Of course, we impose no limits on storage and bandwidth. A Mac version is on its way.
NomaDesk works with a local client and allows access to your files from anywhere on the web. We have very good reasons to work with a local client, next to the already “traditional” web interface (e.g., box.net, the late Xdrive, etc.):
(1) 100% availability of the data, regardless of network quality
(2) 100% performance when editing files, using any type of program
(3) 100% simplicity; just drag-n-drop files to synchronize and share them
(4) 100% security on the PC also: the virtual drives that NomaDesk creates on the PC are encrypted and can be shred remotely via our online TheftGuard service.
The bulk of our users, which are SOHO and SMB teams, appreciate the straightforward and secure file sharing they get through using the NomaDesk client software. You should know that in most cases NomaDesk replaces the traditional file server, FTP and VPN – with success!
Please let me know your thoughts.
Kind regards,
F.
I tried Nomadesk but dropped it after about a month. Their numbers have been going way down and there’s good reason for it, they missed the boat on a lot of things and now it’s too late for them to catch up. Besides, the market is shifting away from their business model so not sure how much longer they’ll be around.
SafeCopy Backup is offering a 10% discount to HP Upline customers. Keep in mind SafeCopy is already 1/3 the cost of the HP Upline Family Plan which is limited to 3 users.
With SafeCopy you can purchase ONE account for ALL your computers. Works on Mac, PC, iPhone, Smartphone. SafeCopy also allows you to easily share files over 1GB.
Promo code of “upline” is good through April 15th.
HP is no longer be backing up your files to the HP Upline servers as of Feb 26, 2009 at 8 am PST. HP will keep the file restore feature of the Upline service operational through March 31, 2009 PST in order for you to download any files you have backed up to Upline. Get your music, your pictures, your videos, your documents. I would not recommend waiting until the last day. Get it done today…!
Once you’ve retrieved them, ElephantDrive.com offers packages that are designed to protect the digital assets of individuals, SMBs, and large organizations. Consumers with questions about transferring their digital assets over to ElephantDrive.com can check out our FAQ page.
https://www.ele...m/help/faq.aspx
ElephantDrive.com is offering a 50% discount for HP Upline consumers who signup for a subscription by clicking the following link. No promo code needed. http://www.elep...ct.aspx?ici=291
I hear you all saying…will ElephantDrive.com features allow me to backup and collaborate too. Yes…check out our just re-tooled Web based application, Explorer and our TrunkDrive for Windows and Mac, and our ElephantDesktop.
Matt K. Olson
Consultant @ ElephantDrive.com
Of all the various backup solutions mentioned which ones will restore my OS and my investment in programs?
HP UPline customers get 10% off their first year of SafeCopy Backup. Keep in mind SafeCopy is already 1/3 the cost of the HP Upline Family Plan which is limited to 3 users. As always with SafeCopy you can purchase ONE account for ALL your computers